Saló: Political Apparatus of Torture

Abstract

Focusing on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s final film, Saló, this article discusses torture as an apparatus of domination, as the most privileged actualisation of state terror. Based on Agamben’s conceptualisation of the state of exception, it argues that, on the one hand sovereign political power turns the state of exception into the rule; on the other it aims to justify repressive apparatuses such as torture. In this sense sovereignty is not only about states of exception. The article therefore discusses torture and the state of exception as inseparable elements of the ‘liberal way of war’. Torture reveals the nature of sovereignty and its rational consciousness. At issue here is a kind of torture that is political, a constitutive act of state terror, which aims to decrease the body’s revolting capacity.

Keywords

• Sovereignty, torture, the state of exception, Saló, the liberal way of war

SALÓ: POLİTİK BİR AYGIT OLARAK İŞKENCE

Abstract

Bu makale Pier Paolo Pasolini’nin son filmi Saló’ya odaklanarak, işkenceyi egemenliğin bir tahakküm aygıtı, devlet terörünün en ‘ayrıcalıklı’ politik biçimlerinden biri olarak kuramlaştırmayı amaçlamaktadır. Agambenci bir şemayı kullanan makale, egemenliğin bir taraftan istisna hâlini kurala dönüştürürken, diğer taraftan işkence gibi baskı ve kontrol tekniklerini de meşrulaştırmaya çalıştığını iddia etmektedir. Dolayısıyla, egemenlik sadece istisna hâliyle sınırlı değildir. Makale, bu bakımdan, işkence ve istisna hâlini ‘liberal savaş biçimi’nin ayrılmaz parçaları olarak tartışacaktır. İşkence hem egemenliğin doğasını hem de rasyonel bilincini tüm çıplaklığıyla açığa vurur. Burada söz konusu olan politik bir işkencedir, çünkü işkence bedenin oluş ve direniş potansiyelini azaltan kurucu bir devlet terörü edimidir

Keywords

• Egemenlik, işkence, istisna hâli, Saló, liberal savaş biçimi

References

1. Agamben G, Homo Sacer. Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1998
2. Agamben Giorgio, State of Exception, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2005
3. Bigo D ve A Tsoukala, Terror, Insecurity and Liberty: Illiberal Practices of Liberal Regimes after 9/11, London, Routledge, 2008
4. Brenner N, New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004
5. Brighenti AM, “On Territorology: Towards a General Science of Territory” Theory, Culture & Society, 27(1), 2010, ss. 52-72.
6. Butler J, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, Verso, London, 2004
7. Chiesa, L, “Pasolini and the Ugliness of Bodies”, In corpore: bodies in postunification Italy içinde, Eds L Polezzi ve C Ross, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Madison and. Teaneck, 2007, ss. 208-226.
8. Dershowitz A, Why terrorism works: understanding the threat, responding to the challenge, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2002

9. Diken B, Revolt, Revolution, Critique: The Paradox of Society, London, Routledge, 2012
10. Dillon M & Reid J, The Liberal Way of War: Killing to Make Life Live, Routledge, London and New York, 2009
11. Elden S, Terror and Territory: The Spatial Extent of Sovereignty, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2009
12. Evans B, Liberal Terror, Cambridge, Polity, 2013
13. Evans, B & Reid, J, Resilient Life: The Art of Living Dangerously, Cambridge, Polity, 2014
14. Graham, S, Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism, London, Verso, 2010
15. Gregory D, “The Black Flag: Guantanamo Bay and the Space of Exception” Geografiska Annaler, Series B, Human Geography, 88(4), 2006, ss. 405- 427.
16. Hardt M & Negri A, Empire, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2000
17. Human Rights Watch, “Torture and Mistreatment in Pre-Trial Detention by Anti-Terror Police”, 1 Mart, 1997
18. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,HRW,,TUR,3ae6a7dd4,0.ht ml (14.08.2015)
19. Jones J, “The Pasolini code” G2, 24 Kasım, 2005
20. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/nov/24/2 (14.08.2015) Kelly T, “The Cause of Human Rights: Doubts about Torture, Law and Ethics at the United Nations”, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17(4) , 2011, ss. 728-744.
21. Kelly T, “The UN Committee Against Torture: Human Rights Monitoring and the Legal Recognition of Torture”, Human Rights Quarterly 31(3), 2009, ss. 777-800.
22. Langbein JH, Torture and the Law of Proof: Europe and England in the Ancien Regime, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2006
23. Luban D, “Liberalism, Torture, and the Ticking Bomb”, Virginia Law Review 91, 2005, ss. 1425-1461.
24. Lyon D, Surveillance After September 11, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2003
25. Lyon, D, Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life, Buckingham, Open University Press, 2001
26. MacIntyre A, After virtue: a study in moral theory, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 2007
27. Margulies J, “A prison beyond the law”, Virginia Quarterly Review, 80(4), 2004, ss. 37–55.
28. McGreal C, “Bush on torture: Waterboarding helped prevent attacks on London”, The Guardian, 9 Kasım, 2010.
29. Pasolini PP, Saló, United Artists Corporation and Water Beaver Films, 1975
30. Pavlischek K, “Human Rights and Justice in an Age of Terror: An evangelical critique of An Evangelical Declaration Against Torture” Books and Culture: A Christian Review
31. http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/webexclusives/2007/sep tember/ept24a.html, 2007 (14.08.2015)
32. Todorov T, Torture and the war on terror, Seagull Books, London, 2009
33. Pugliese, J, State Violence and Execution of Law: Biopolitical Caesurae of Torture, Black Sites, Drones, Routledge, Abingdon and New York, 2013
34. Reid-Henry S, “Exceptional Sovereignty? Guantanamo Bay and the ReColonial Present”, Antipode, 39(4), 2007, ss. 627-648.
35. Sparke M, In the Space of Theory: Postfoundational Geographies of the NationState, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2005
36. Springer, S, Violent Neoliberalism, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015